Beneath the Leaves is thematically about how past trauma haunts the present, including a detective who is determined to continue working on a case when he is the victim. Will he be able to finally escape the past?

Beneath the Leaves is not a good movie. I was drawn to it because the promoters did a great job of pushing Mira and Paul Sorvino to the forefront of the promotional material when neither are actually the star of the film. Mira’s face looks as if she smelled something bad throughout filming, and Paul visibly seems to be suffering in pain, which spoilers, they are. Blame Harvey Weinstein for their suffering. Unfortunately for me, the cynical marketing worked.

While I love having a woman as a protagonist, Beneath the Leaves actually had a better idea to make the survivor a man. Unfortunately the writer and director’s solid ideas get completely immersed in so many cliches and such bad acting that it would be completely plausible to finish watching the movie and believe that this film is an irredeemable mess. It really leans heavily on cop crime drama tropes, and it would not necessarily be out of place on NBC’s lineup if Dick Wolf decided to give to charity and clean up the movie a lot, but that move would ignore the little that does make this movie work.

Beneath the Leaves’ strongest emotional moments are the quieter ones: when we see the first victim gradually realize that he is not having a great night out, when a guy turns down an interested woman’s advances or when brothers converge on another brother’s home. There are huge swaths of missed opportunities in the post racial approach, color blind perspective. This film could have hit It: Part One levels of deeper meaning, but it was clueless and clearly no one in the back will be the next Jordan Peele. It does make some clumsy attempts at addressing sexism in the workplace, but it feels out of place in this particular movie. No offense intended to the Sorvinos, but they are not the heart of the movie and just make solid supporting characters. Maybe the film could not have been made without their fame, but their characters are the weakest parts of the film. This movie would make more sense if its protagonist was the alcoholic detective, but Kristoffer Polaha does not have the acting chops to give a full spectrum of nuanced human emotions and hits a ten quite regularly. At least in scenes with his brothers, he tries to explore other rungs on the ladder.

The real heart of Beneath the Leaves and rightful protagonist is Christopher Backus, who plays Matt and is Mira’s real-life husband, which I did not know until after I finished the movie. He strikes the strongest chord in the movie and is a lightning rod of interest. Christopher Masterson, who plays George, was the older brother from Malcolm in the Middle and bears a strong, unfortunate resemblance to his alleged, accused rapist brother, Danny from That ‘70s Show, delivers such a strong performance that he practically single-handedly changes the entire tone of the movie.

Backus and Masterson are in a good movie about trying to live on any kind of healthy, functional level of freedom after a traumatic incident, but the sensational, gratuitous, prurient spectacle of sex and violence suffocate anything interesting in this story. Backus and Masterson embody powerful emotions and provide Polaha an outlet to depart from the gravity of being in a trite cop drama, but it is too little, too late to save the mostly dreadful film.

Beneath the Leaves is more comfortable with being a low quality, cop drama. If you decide to see it, I am going to issue a trigger warning for domestic violence, physical and sexual child abuse at the outset. The beginning is unforgettable and tastefully done, but there are so many subsequent flashbacks that it is initially difficult to figure out when all the pieces fit. While it was well done in terms of setting the tone, I am also uncertain what its goal was, and the filmmaker should have cut it. The film shows zero sympathy to the criminal who hurt the detective when he was a child. Though Doug Jones plays the criminal, he is a two-dimensional character, a pretty standard psycho in spite of Jones’ talents. The opening scene may give away too much to hold suspense later in the film. The final scene is supposed to be a surprise, but instead it felt like, “About time” when the other shoe finally drops. There were only two possible options, and it was mostly obvious whom it would be. The narrative needed to be radically restructured to hold any surprises or add texture to a well-worn crime drama.

Normally I shout out production design for doing great work, but Beneath the Leaves’ wardrobe, hair and makeup deserves castigation. One character’s hair is so clearly a wig and an unattractive one that it pained me that even after his character exited the plot, I was forced to dwell on it. Mira wears a hat that seems so out of place perched on her head. Why did she need a hat? It was as if they thought that because she is a detective, she should wear a hat in which case, where is her trench coat. Just, no. One character’s make up seems to be applied with a trowel. If it was a foreboding homage to Bette Davis’ performance in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, then it was a grave mistake. It was just bad.

If I had to give the good sport award to an actor, it would not go to one of the Sorvinos, but Aaron Farb, the actor who is forced to wear the dreadful wig and gets the worst dialogue, but has to keep moving forward as if it is not the worst. I do not want to go as far as to say that he was able to escape the gravitational pull of dreckitude; however I did notice that he made the most of any silent opportunities to project the appropriate emotion on his face. If Beneath the Leaves decided to completely ignore the theme of trauma and commit to the police procedural story, he could have done more than he was permitted to deliver in this film. The movie treats him like an idiot, but it gives us a brief glimpse how he survived as an undercover detective before reverting to baffling stupidity. Once again the film shows that it could have moments of creating a truly chilling and disturbing story, but it rushes away from quality as if it is allergic to it.

I cannot recommend Beneath the Leaves. It is Adam Marino’s feature film directorial and writing debut. Because there are glimpses of goodness, and he is a beginner, I am unwilling to write him off entirely, but I will not exactly be rushing to see his sophomore entry without checking out the ratings first. Life is too short to throw away ninety minutes of your life on this mess, especially when there is so much great available content at our fingertips…..